NIFT Stealth II Trial AAR (Long)

Found it!

This is for Laserlight, the Beast, and whoever else might be interested. 

NIFT Stealth II Trial AAR

This was a PBeM battle started just about 1 year ago, as part of what I
had
hoped (and still hope) to be a series of playtests of rules and systems
I
wanted to balance. So far only two such games have been played, but I
hope
to eventually do more. This game was to test New Israeli Stealth hull, a
system that reduces the effective range of opposing weapons.

I  still have hopes of getting the various maps and individual turn
reports
up on the NIFT web site, but that's more time than I have right now.

Here's the setup and action:

John T Leary's Privateer fleet:

P1- Repulsive DN
Mass 200, NPV 662
Armor: 11
Hull: 60
Thrust: 5
FTL
Screen: 2
FireCon: 3
P-Torp (FH): 2
Class 2 (360): 6
Class 1: 4
PDS: 2

P2- Raider BC
Mass 100, NPV 335
Armor: 3
Hull: 30
Thrust: 5
FTL
Screen: 2
FireCon: 3
P-Torp (FH): 1
Class 2 (FH): 4
Class 1: 4
PDS: 1

P3, 4- Reaver, Ravager DH
Mass 40, NPV 136
Armor: 4
Hull: 8
Thrust: 5
FTL
FireCon: 2
P-Torp (FH): 1
Class 2 (FH): 2
Class 1: 2

P5- Runner DD
Mass 30, NPV 98
Armor: 2
Hull: 9
Thrust: 6
FTL
FireCon: 1
Class 2 (FH): 2
Class 1: 2

Laserlight's New Israel Fleet:

NI1-3 Read Noise, Random Effect, Kos Eliyahu
	Yerushalayim stealth cruiser
Mass 87, Cost 305
Armor: 5
Hull: 14
Thrust: 4
FTL
Stealth: 2 (Opponent's range bands reduced by 1/3)
Firecon: 2
Class 3 (F/FP/AP): 3
Class 1: 1
PDS: 4

NI4, 5 Full Width Half Maximum, Undocumented Feature
	Maccabee Stealth Cruiser
Mass 67, Cost 231
Armor: 2
Hull: 10
Thrust: 6
FTL
Stealth: 2 (Opponent's range bands reduced by 1/3)
Firecon: 2
Class 3 (F/FP/AP): 2
PDS: 1

Modified Turn Sequence:
		      1.Write Orders. 
		      2. Damage Control
		      3.PDS Fire. 
		      4.Fighter Fire. 
		      5.Missile Fire (not launches). 
		      6.Ship to Ship Attacks. 
		      7.Fighter/Missile Launches. 
		      8.Movement of Units (Ships, Fighters, Missiles,
etc.) 
		      9.Scanning. 

Setup (Cinematic movement):
Privateerswere grouped pm the right heading 9 oclock at speed 15
New Israel on the left and a little higher, heading 1 oclock at 12

NI and the Privaters close for through Turn 2.

Turn 3: First Blood. Ravager is ravaged by 12 long range beam dice,
leaving
it well shot up, but still able to execute its full maneuver. Privateer
weapons open up, firing pulse torps at Read Noise and Kos Eliyahu, but
the
torps are unable to track the stealthy targets and remain out of
effective
range (only by the slimmest of margins). Fortunately for the privateers,
they are now almost all in New Israel's aft arc.

Turn 4: Read Noise and FWHM target Repulsive, barely in range/arc, with
5
beams. One good shot carves a decent gouge in Repulsive's hull. Maneuver
this turn puts the Privateers solidly behind New Israel, with Runner
just
barely out of range of the Stealth fleet, close enough to feel her
breathing
down their necks.

Turn 5: The Privateer's Runner fires a shot off at Read Noise, but is
just
out of effective range. New Israel tries to shake the Privateers out of
their aft arc without success. 

Turn 6,7: New Israel bobs, the Privateers weave. Maneuvering hard,
elements
of both New Israel and Privateers enter extreme ranges.

Turn 8: FWHM and Undocumented Feature fire long range at Reaver, the NI
heavies still rolled the wrong direction to fire.  NI's long range fire
is
sufficient to threshold Reaver, however. Maneuver this turn finally
brings
some NI ships into Privateer weapon range. The Yerushalayims roll
attempting
to bring their heavy weapons to bear on the T-boning Privateers.

Turn 9: The Yerushalayims open up with Class 3 beams on the charging
Raider.
Raider's screens flare, absorbing or deflecting over one-third of the
fire
directed at it, though the energy that makes it through scars her
forward
hull severely. Return fire from the Privateers burns the armor off Read
Noise. Though all four torps go wide, the crew can virtually feel grav
wake
of the closest miss.
The fleets have reached Oerjan Speeds.

Turn 10: Withering beam fire from the Yerushalayims vaporizes Runner.
Return
fire from Runner scores armor and hull damage on Read Noise. Though
Repulsive remains out of arc, Ravager's Pulse Torpedo finds and slams
Kos
Eliyahu. As the smaller units peel off, the heavies of both sides
converge
for a frank exchange of views.

Turn 11: New Israel and the Privateers trade fire and thresholds. Both
Raider and Kos Eliyahu take significant hits. Kos takes less damage, but
drive signature spikes and decreases. Repulsive slams on the
grav-breaks,
putting it in excellent position behind the Yerushalayim group. The
smaller
privateer escorts continue arcing back toward the melee.

Turn 12: A punishing turn. Though Kos Eylihyahu manages to repair her
drive
and take only minor damage, Repulsive's massed beams and torpedoes
virtually
gut Read Noise. Since Repulsive is safely in New Israel's Aft arc at
this
point, NI's only target is the peeling-off Raider. However, in a good
break
for the Israelis, Read Noise's and Random Effect's combined long range
beams
give almost as good as Read Noise got. Maneuvering this turn has
Repulsive
turning outside the Yerushalayims, trying to keep them in arc. The
smaller
privateers are coming back into the battle, and the Maccabees are
screaming
back to join the fray.

Turn 13: Back at long range, P1's torps go wide against Kos Eliyahu.
Conversely, The two full strength Yerushalayims blast at Repulsive,
whose
screens work overtime to save her from a threshhold. Maneuver puts Read
Noise in extreme jeopardy, but otherwise gives NI some breathing room.
The
Maccabees turn to hunt down P2.

Turn 14: Both sides get blacker and bluer this turn.
Heavy fire is exchanged between the New Israel cruisers and the main
Privateer group. Read Noise is scuttled and abandoned before finally
being
put out of its misery by the combined fire of three opponents. The
privateers shift focus to Kos Eliyahu, taking her through two more
thresholds and blowing out half her drive, among other things. New
Israel
doesn't take any of this lying down, however. Random Effect snipes
Reaver
through threshold 3, forcing her to curtail maneuvering, then adds to
Kos
concentrating on Ravager, ripping her hull open in several places.
Meanwhile, almost in another sector of space, FWHM and Undocumented
Feature
are in hot pursuit of the limping Raider - and gaining.

Conclusion: By agreement of the players the Stealth II trial is called
at
this point. NI2 will jump out, NI3 is conceded lost. P2 is conceded
lost,
and it's a tossup as to whether P3 or P4 could be taken out before NI3
goes
up. The privateers get at least a tactical victory for holding the
space. 

Feedback: The NI needed higher maneuver to keep the Pirates out from
behind
them. Maintaining speed and distance is crucial to stealth's advantage.
The
smaller ships took quite a while to swing back into action. Assymetrical
arcs have advantages that are offset by close combat and a more
maneuverable
opponent.

Analysis:
One proposal was made post-game to have stealth degrade with damage,
which
makes sense to me since a ship who's hull is getting ripped up by fire
is
going to lose hull-dependent masking capabilities ( or, if its an ECM
system, the system might be damageable like any other).

I've begun to think of stealth as being a threshold-able "system" itself
now, which would give the freedom of PSB to make it a hull configuration
(my
preference) or an electronics package. This is not a new idea, but it's
taken the playtests and some thought to make me begin to favor it.

Making it thresholdable should make it cheaper and/or less massive.
Right
now Stealth 1 and 2 mass like partial and full streamlining (10% and 20%
of
Mass), and costs 3/mass. Making it thresholdable (and repairable) should
reduce the mass requirements a couple percent, but I don't know how
much.
I'd probably start with 7% Mass per level, cost 5*Mass, which would have
made the system cost about the same, and given the Yerushalayims 5 more
mass
for Armor/Hull or another thrust point, for example. This revision makes
stealth a bit more expensive for heavier ships and a bit cheaper for
smaller
ships, which is also logical.

Noam